Fake movie wins top prize at Las Vegas Film Festival; scam designed to get tax credits

According to the UK Daily Mail, a criminal gang pretended to make a film and got more than $30 million in government money that was intended to help the film industry. When tax investigators started to uncover the scheme, the gang tried to make a real movie to cover their tracks and churned out a thriller for $136,000. The hoax film actually won the "Silver Ace" award — the top prize — at the 2012 Las Vegas Film Festival, which probably says more about the Las Vegas event than the quality of the film. Yesterday, the film festival revoked the reward.

Watch the trailer above. Read the UK Daily Mail story here. See my Fact Checker column on whether film tax credits help states here.

Is this story a fake? It sounds like "The Producers". Set out to steal investors money by making a cheap film and then it becomes a hit. They made a movie. Let them pay their taxes and make money.

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Fact Checker columns by Mark Robison are rated on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being absolutely true with no gray area, 5 being down the middle with good points by both sides, 1 being false with no gray area and 0 being intentionally, maliciously or foolishly false.

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